EDITOR Jonathan Grudin jgrudin@microsoft.com

automatically process and post online. This was surprisingly difficult for many: “I was amazed at how people who sent me files couldn’t follow even the simple rules. I was three pattern documents into this thing, and getting pretty tired of it already. So I made a form for submitting the documents.” [ 8] This user-editable repository would come to be known as the Portland Pattern Repository—and the first wiki. In a sense, wiki captures the original conception of the World Wide Web as both a browsing and editing medium, the latter capability largely forgotten. Wiki makes this possible by placing a simple editor within a Web-page form, and the functionality of formatting and linking is carried out by the wiki server. Any browser can now edit.

In early January 2001, there was an increasing frustration associated with Nupedia productivity. The need to publish more articles, as well as a greater popular interest in contributing, was not well matched by the expert-dependent multistep editorial process. Hence, the stage was set for the introduction of a wiki. On January 2, Sanger had lunch with Ben Kovitz, a friend from Internet philosophy lists, during which Kovitz introduced the idea of wikis to Sanger. Sanger immediately saw this as a possible remedy to Nupedia’s problems, permitting wider uncredentialed contribution and collaboration on articles that would then be fed to Nupedia’s credentialed editorial review. Within a day, Sanger proposed the idea to Wales, and Nupedia’s wiki was announced on January 10 in a message entitled, “Let’s make a Wiki”:

Since its start, Wikipedia’s growth has been extraordinary. Within six months Sanger announced that “the Wikipedia is now useful.” In September 2001 he proclaimed on Usenet: “Interpedia is dead—long live the Wikipedia…. Interpedia’s noble dream of creating a free, open encyclopedia lives on—not quite in the form imagined, but in a ‘very’ open and free form with which many early participants would probably approve.” [ 11] Wikipedia proved to be so successful that when the server hosting Nupedia crashed in September 2003 (with little more than 24 complete articles and 74 more in progress) it was never restored [ 12]. Yet Sanger continued to be committed to an authoritative expert-driven reference work and was never fully reconciled with Wikipedia’s radical openness and explosive growth. Then, with the burst of the Internet bubble, Sanger, like many others in the industry, was laid off (from Bomis); he resigned from his Wikipedia role shortly thereafter. Still, he continued to comment, criticize, and eventually compete with a new expert-friendly wiki project, Citizendium. The English version of Wikipedia now exceeds two million articles, having long ago subsumed most of the original Nupedia content. The Wikimedia Foundation, incorporated in 2003, is now the steward of Wikipedias in many languages, a wiki based dictionary, a compendium of quotations, collaborative textbooks, a repository of free source texts, and a collection of images that can be used by other Wikimedia projects.

Considering these remarkable resources and the long and dogged pursuit of the universal encyclopedic vision, Wikipedia’s emergence seems inevitable. But when one looks more closely at the history, at the unfortunate neutering of the Web by the browser, at the productive laziness prompting the creation of the wiki, at chance emails and lunch conversations, it can equally be seen as a happy accident.

[ 8] Cunningham, W.
“Correspondence on
the Etymology of Wiki.”
Nov. 2003. Cunningham
& Cunningham, Inc.
2005. 4 Oct. 2008.
< http://c2.com/doc/
etymology.html>

[ 9] Sanger, L.. “Let’s Make a Wiki.” Mailing list. 10 Jan. 2001. Nupedia-L. 15 Nov. 2005. <http:// web.archive.org/ web/20030414014355/ http://www.nupedia. com/pipermail/nupedia- l/2001-January/000676. html>

[ 10] “History of Wikipedia.” Wikimedia. 8 Jan. 2009. <http:// en.wikipedia.org/w/ index.php?oldid= 262685944>

No, this is not an indecent proposal. It’s an idea to add a little feature to Nupedia. Jimmy Wales thinks that many people might find the idea objectionable, but I think not. As to Nupedia’s use of a wiki, this is the ULTIMATE “open” and simple format for developing content. We have occasionally bandied about ideas for simpler, more open projects to either replace or supplement Nupedia. It seems to me wikis can be implemented practically instantly, need very little maintenance, and in general are very low-risk. They’re also a potentially great source for content [ 9].

[ 11] Sanger, L.
“Wikipedia Is Now
Useful!” Wikipedia. 26
June 2001. <http://
en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/ Wikipedia:Ann
ouncements_2001#
June_ 26.2C_2001>
and “Interpedia Is
Dead—Long Live
Wikipedia.” Discussion
Group. 23 Sept. 2001.
comp.infosystems.
interpedia. 3 Nov. 2005.
<http://groups.google.
com/group/comp.
infosystems.interpedia/
browse_thread/thread/
d0eef272f840b9c2/bb0
38fa078a1bf8d?lnk=st&
q=group:*interpedia*&r
num= 17&hl=en#bb038
fa078a1bf8d>

However, Wales was right: Nupedia contributors did resist Nupedia being associated with a website in the wiki format. Therefore, the new project was given the name “Wikipedia” and launched on its own address, Wikipedia.com, on January 15, 2001 [ 10].

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Joseph Reagle is an adjunct professor at NYU’s Department of Media, Culture, and Communication where he studies collaborative cultures. As a former research engineer at MIT’s Lab for Computer Science he served as a Working Group Chair and author within IETF and

W3C on topics including digital security, privacy, and Internet policy. A book, based on his dissertation, about Wikipedia collaboration should be available in 2009.

[ 12] “Nupedia.” Wikipedia. 21 Dec. 2008. <http:// en.wikipedia.org/w/ index.php?oldid= 259360273>

May + June 2009

DOI: 10.1145/1516016.1516026
© 2009 ACM 1072-5220/09/0500 $5.00